


Why Can't We Be Selfish Again

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bethyl Smut Week, Character Death Fix, F/M, Family, Fingerfucking, Heavy Angst, Masturbation, Masturbation in Bathroom, Porn With Plot, Psychological Horror, References to Depression, Romance, Sexual Tension, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5656300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth just wants Daryl to stop distancing himself and come talk to her, instead of avoiding her at every opportunity he gets. Surviving a bullet to the head can really make a person go crazy, especially when all they can think about is a man with his breath in her ear, hands on her chest, and lips on her neck. And he is making her crazy, and it's not doing either of them any favors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Can't We Be Selfish Again

**Author's Note:**

> So another year rolls by and we arrive at Smut Week once again. After last year, this is what I guess you could call pretty tame, since there's no actual act of sex that takes place between Daryl and Beth in this fic. I wanted to do something a little different this time, and this is what I came up with.
> 
> Now, when I set out writing this I wanted it to be sweet, tender, and a little romantic. But what do I get as a finished result? Fucking THIS. Why does this always happen?
> 
> So enjoy angst city and leave a comment if you enjoy.  
> Now excuse me while I go weep.

There's no such thing as coming back from the dead.

That's what she screamed at Maggie all those years ago, on the topic of vampires and monsters, and Beth Greene had refused to believe in the ridiculous possibility of something rising from the grave after death.

But then the apocalypse happened―the dead getting up and walking―and suddenly the girl the girl with the blonde hair that rose ponies bareback and danced with butterflies couldn't really deny it anymore…

And now _she's_ come back from the dead too, after a bullet to the brain.

It's impossible. It's honestly the most impossible thing that's ever happened before. And it's scary. Because she looks in the mirror and sees a girl that's not herself. A _woman_ , with stern grey eyes and scarred slashes across her face. She looks at that reflection and sees no trace of the sunny little girl she left behind on the ground with the dropped pack, when the men from Grady came to take her away.

There's just a stranger, staring back through the foggy glass.

Just a body.

She breathes out of puff of hot air and slides down further into the bath tub she's sitting in, letting the mountains of foam and bubbles tickle her jaw as she does. She wiggles the toes that are out of the water and taps the side of the tub with her fingertips, lights from the candles flickering lowly around the room.

They have electricity here in Alexandria. Lights, heating systems, baths and showers, working facilities... But after so long of having nothing, Beth feels she can't _bring_ herself to use something as painfully normal as a light switch.

It feels false, synthetic, and a sharp, white brightness.

Too much like hospital lights.

She leans her head back on the lip of the tub and sighs, eyelids drifting closed with a slow exhale. She thinks of the others' faces when they saw her again. How they breathed in disbelief and bounded to her side, Maggie particularly. Of the laughing, the crying, the gasping, the _staring_.

That what he did.

Stared.

Just stood there behind everyone else who had darted to hold her, staring with an utterly blank expression. His eyes were wide with shock; she'd noticed from over Glenn's shoulder as he embraced her. Wide eyes with pupils blown huge, and lips trembling like he was afraid.

Of what? Who could know. But she remembers the flashes of emotion she saw on his face when they ran together through the woods; the flickers of rage, dismay, and happiness. She saw the way he looked at her all those times, and the time he looked at her at that table with the candles sitting watching.

She sees the way he looks at her _now_ , even if he didn't drop his bow and run to her like everyone else did. Sees how his eyes can't help but wander to her when they're in the same vicinity, and how he looks at her like she's this thing he's longing for.

 _Yearning_. Like she's something precious.

Something worth looking at.

That hasn't changed at all, and honestly it just makes it a whole lot worse if he refuses to talk to her. He's only said one thing to her post their reunion, and that one sentence both confuses and disturbs her…

Why?

Because she understands what he means by those three quick words…

 _You were right_.

She was.

She was right about _everything_.

About the walkers; about them finding the group again. Right about the way he'd looked at her back then. The way he _still_ looked at her. She was right about him missing her. But if he'd missed her so much, like everyone said he did... Why was he being like this? Why was he putting a literal street between them, and never once crossing it to come to her?

Why was she still _alone_?

He'd said they could stay in that funeral home, him and her. Just the two of them, alone for a while… or maybe forever. What was the difference?

He'd said they would be alright and they weren't.

 _I'm not gonna leave you_ , she'd said. The last thing she probably might have _ever_ said to him, if that bullet had gone through at just a millimetre lower.

_I won't leave you._

_Not ever._

Of course _he_ would be the one to break what _for a while_ really meant.

Her fingers dance along the slippery edge of the tub and over to her knee, where her thumb dusts over the soaking flesh and then leisurely drifts down her thigh. With her eyes closed, the liquid feels just like blood. Warm and trickling, coating her in a layer of red.

Blood is all there is now.

Red and fire. Smoke and cinder.

Her hand drifts down to her pelvis where she rubs smooth circles across her lower abdomen, and tilts her head to the side when the hand lowers further downward. It brushes something warmer than the illusion of gory water, something hot and pulsing, and closes over to cup the little throbbing nub there.

She lets out a breathy gasp at the contact, steam rising up and flushing her cheeks a fine pink, and continues to gently stroke her fingers along the length of her pussy. She can feel how wet she is even under the water, and every light press feels like a weight.

Like a cock. _His_ cock. Hard and aching, lapping at her entrance with its head and slowly pushing in.

She traces her finger along the moist slit and shudders with a louder moan. As she rubs at the space, fingers dipping in agonisingly slow, she imagines it's his hand doing the movements. His hand curling around her wrist, dragging it away, and replacing it with his own. Cupping her with his palm, stroking her slickness with his fingertips and toying with her clit, body towering over her in the bathtub and his hot breathing along her neck and…

 _Oh god_.

She slides her other hand up to cup her tiny breast, pulling roughly at the somewhat risen flesh as if it were him, thumb curling out and flicking the hardened nipple with a punishing twist.

She cries out at the action, hips bucking into her hand, and she moans his name.

_Daryl… Oh, Daryl._

Her fingers stroke deeper and her hips thrust up to meet each push, the hand that had been pinching her nipple holding onto the side of the tub as she shoves her fingers in and out in rhythmic thrusts, ears ringing with her own noises and his imagined ones. Her eyes flicker beneath her closed lids and she fucks herself hard like she never dared to before, sticky juices leaking out and staining her plunging fingers.

Fingers she wishes were his, but couldn't be, because he won't even _talk_ to her, let alone make her come in the bathtub.

But that doesn't mean she can't pretend.

Just a few more thrusts and strokes- _oh._ A few more strokes to humour the hallucination. Just a couple more and it'll be–

Two gentle taps on the bathroom door cause her to freeze, and go deadly still in the tub.

Her breath still comes out in desperate shaky breaths and she feels like she wants to cry. She swallows a heady moan and tilts her head in the direction of the closed door.

It's so quiet now she considers she might have imagined it… But then there it is again.

 _Tap, tap, tap_ , against the wood.

She's so exasperated she honestly thinks she will cry, until a voice calls out softly from behind the wooden door. A voice that threatens to bring on a whine of dismay.

"…Beth?"

 _Oh god_.

She sinks down further into the water and muffles a sob, but it comes out more as a moan as her clit practically pulses with want.

It would be him.

Of all the people that could choose to walk over here, it would be _him_.

He always did pick the worst of times to grow some balls and talk to her.

"Beth? It is you in there, ain't it...? Ya alright?"

Her hand retracts from where it was sat nestled between her legs, and she sits up, unaware that her shoulders are shaking with a sudden coldness. A cold not brought on by the temperature of the air, a cold that builds from deep inside where the fire had just been raging as her fingers stoked it with coal.

He's so close, but the door separating them feels more like walls the size of the ones this place has.

"Yeah," she calls back, "I'm fine, I..."

Her voice is shakier than she thought, and a sob _does_ come out then.

It's a loud one too, high-pitched and pathetic sounding. And the door knob twists quickly and opens, and Daryl comes scurrying into the room.

He stops half way to the bath, probably just realising what he's done, and she's sitting there biting down on her lip and truly trying to hold in the growing sobs.

Her cheeks are stained with tears though, she notices then. She's been crying all this time, without even realising it.

 _When did it start?_ she wonders. When she started thinking about him? When she closed her eyes and _touched_ herself whilst thinking about him, pretending he was the one touching her there? Or had she been crying all this time? Since the second she'd opened her no longer comatose eyes to those artificial hospital lights and realised that he wasn't there with her.

"Beth..." he says it again, seemingly unsure on whether or not he should approach her.

He's so cautious, so hesitant, and it makes her want to cry even more.

Because he's sweet, and he's gentle, and he's so unbelievably _kind_ ; and that's what he's been doing all along by distancing himself from her…

He's being kind.

No matter how much it hurts to be apart from him, no matter how much she lies in bed every night and wishes he was there on the opposite side of the room, sharpening his knife... He's doing it because he's being kind.

To both of them.

Losing her _did_ destroy him, like Rick and Carol said. That was always true, and him staying away from her destroyed her too. But they're way more destructive together than apart. That's how it's always been. But honestly...

Beth just doesn't care.

She's so _done_ with giving a lick of a shit about things like that, and right now his kindness is the _last_ thing she wants. What she wants is his grisly voice in her ear, his fingers brushing her arm, his lips hot along her collarbone, and his cock swelled and burning for her, pushing against her heated core, demanding entry.

Even without that, she just wants _him_. Just him. For him to _be_ there, sit with her, talk to her. Be like they used to be before everything got so damned complicated.

Back when they were selfish, running through the woods like animals. Back before he got so nonsensically _kind_.

She wants him to pull her into his arms and hold her like everyone else did. She wants it so bad she might just stand up in her full nakedness and bound over to him right now. She's never been so desperate for something so small before — never been so hungry. She's _starving_. And he's starving too, she can tell.

Cautiously, she sits up straighter in the tub and brings her arms away from covering her chest, and he sucks in a sharp breath as she does.

She arches her back and bares her pathetically flat chest at him, nipples pointed and flushed pink like her cheeks from steam and mortification. They're dusted with tiny white bubbles, and Daryl stares at her like she's doing something outright insane.

It is insane.

She's insane; they're _both_ insane.

They've _always_ been mad.

This isn't even about her wanting him like that either. Not really. She may be flashing him her naked bosom and stretching her arms out as a beckoning... But really... She just wants him to come to her.

He stares at her with shaking lips and eyes shamefully shifting down to her exposed front, but it doesn't matter. She knows he wants to see her like this, maybe has for a long time, but it's still not entirely about that. He might be as effected as she, but she knows he wants to be near her again. To brush his fingers along her arm sneakily, like he thought she wouldn't notice, and gesture her along the path. Tell her to jump onto his back and let him carry her along like prized cargo to what they'd made their home.

 _Come to me_ , she whispers with her mind. _Please_.

_Tell me you missed me. Show me you did._

_Don't leave me alone in here_.

The only word she needs to whimper is his name… and he comes striding over to where she sits in the sweltering water.

" _Daryl_ ,"

He walks over to the marble tub forcefully, and winds his arms around her when he reaches her, and tugs her into him, ignoring the soapy suds that cling to his vest and the bubbles that burst on his hair as he crushes them.

He pulls her to his chest and he doesn't let go.

And neither does she, because she wraps her arms around his waist and presses her face—that's dripping with both bath water and tears—into his stomach. He breathes at the same time she does, one big relieved sigh, and he pushes his nose into her soaking hair. Her lower stomach is digging into the side of the bath because of the angle, but she doesn't readjust herself. The pressure is uplifting. Probing. She hears him whispering her name into her hair, and tightens her hold around his waist.

Suddenly everything seems to melt away.

She stands up quickly and winds her arms around his neck, heels skidding on the slippery surface of the bath's nethermost, and the action sends him toppling backward with her still clinging to him. They hit the floor with a little thud, foam and streams of water following and soaking him even more, but he doesn't let go of her. His arms squeeze her waist and pull her so close, her spine is bent in a way that shouldn't be possible.

And he's there, she's there, they're both _here_.

Her crying intensifies and she starts hiccupping snottily into his neck, and his hand shoves into her hair and pulls damp clumps to hold her there.

It's like he's crying too, with the way his shoulders heave up and down and his breathing is shaky, but there are no tears running down his cheeks. He's just breathing. Greedily. Like a man that's been underwater for so long, this is the first gulp of air he's got, and he's drinking it in. Drinking _her_ in. She pushes herself into his dripping leather vest and claws at the opening collar of his shirt, movements sloppy and frantic. Like she's trying to crawl inside him and hide. He sits up and pulls her with him, face shoved into her shoulder with the scruff scratching the wet flesh there, and his lips press all along her collar with no precise pattern or tempo.

He's just touching. Feeling. Giving up on being so damn kind just for now.

His shirt is opened and she pushes herself flush against his now bare chest, pebbled nipples catching the wiry hair now and scraping, and she digs her nails into the skin at the back of his neck.

She whispers against his cheek, eyes wet and sticky, and breathing laboured.

_Touch me, hold me, feel me, be with me. Please, I swear to god, Daryl, please._

His breath sounds like a sob and he clenches his teeth against her neck.

_Tell me, say it. Please just say it._

What changed his mind?

 _Please_.

His hand trails up the bony bumps of her spine and she shivers, slumps, and goes still against him, whispering ceasing. He holds her like that, comforting her by rubbing a hand up and down her back, the rapid thump of his heart lulling her into a hazy trance.

There's no such thing as coming back from the dead, except maybe there is when they're concerned.

He stills his hand on her back and winds it around her waist again, the other arm sliding beneath her knees, and he scoops her up. Stands up and carries her like he already has twice before ― once when they were happy, and once when she was dead.

And now she's alive again but there's a part of her that's still dead. There's a part of them both that's dead now, and it only took one bullet to kill two birds with one stone.

She wraps her arms around his neck and holds on as he carries her out of the bathroom, still very naked but honestly uncaring. She holds on because he needs to know she's not dead.

So does she.

He walks with her in his arms for what feels like hours, cradled against his chest like a sleeping doll, but in reality is probably only no more than a couple of minutes. He walks with her until her eyes are closed and she wonders when and where he will put them both down, though she secretly wishes the answer to be never.

He walks to his room and quietly closes the door behind him with a foot, before walking over to the bed and laying her down, movements entirely soft.

It's gentle. Kind. Selfless.

He puts her down on the soft quilt and tugs it up over her.

When she's nestled up in the covers of his bed, he walks around to the other side and strips down out of his damp clothes. She sees the scars scattered along his back when he takes off his shirt, and thinks: _We're falling_.

_We've picked ourselves up time after time again… but we're still falling, never reaching the bottom, just falling through endless abyss of sky._

Maggie says the scars on her face show she's survived, and that's what Daryl's scars mean too.

He made it. He got through whatever terrible happening he got them from, and he made it.

She'll ask him what happened some other time, because she feels if she asks now he won't give her an answer, and she doesn't expect him to. He hasn't asked about hers, so she isn't going to ask about his. Not now.

He lays down next to her on the bed, him naked as well now, and crawls under the covers. He stares at her with those pale blue eyes she can just see through the dark mop of bangs in his face, and she stares back. They stay like that for a while before Beth eventually scoots closer to him, and winds her arms around his stomach once again. She presses her face into his bare chest and breathes in the smell she'd grown so used to during the days it was only them running.

Dirt, smoke, the musk of leather, and heat. He smells like heat.

He winds his arms around her too and lays his chin on top of her still dripping wet head. There'll be stains in the mattress soon enough, but neither of them can really bring themselves to care. Not when they're lying here together like this.

The fire between her legs has cooled, but she can still feel the distant throb and the warmth burning in the pit of her stomach, and it would be naïve for her not to notice the blatant hardness of his dick poking her belly.

But those things don't matter, because they're just bodies. Just flesh and blood.

Yes, she wants him to toss her over and pound into her mercilessly, gripping her hip and silencing her cries with his mouth. She wants him to _fuck_ her like she's been _dreaming_ he would in her lonely moments of self-euphoria. His tongue down her throat, hands on her ass, cock bucking ruthlessly inside her, stretching and filling her with his scorching liquid, the risk of pregnancy be damned.

She wants that, but she feels if they give into the fire, it'll be like drinking the poison laid out in front of them.

They'll hit the bottom after falling for so long and it'll all be over.

There might not be such a thing as coming back from the dead, but if there isn't Beth doesn't know what she's doing back here, with his hand shifting down to graze her thigh tenderly, and her head laid on his breast above his steadily beating heart.

She closes her eyes and she sleeps. And this time, her dreams aren't invaded with gunshots and a sky raining with blood.

She closes her eyes and everything is fine.


End file.
